or the Sanscrit, I fixed upon the first, in the selection of which, for many reasons, which will appear hereafter, I consider myself peculiarly fortunate.
For some time my progress was very slow,—my studies were much interrupted by public business; and, for almost two years together, by a successful attempt into which I was led, in the performance of my duty as a justice of the peace, to reform some most shocking abuses in the York Lunatic Asylum.
In my study of Hebrew, also, a considerable time, I may say, was wasted on the Masoretic points, which at last I found were a mere invention of the modern Jews, and not of the smallest use.[1]
During this process, I also found it was very desirable that I should consult many works in the libraries of Italy and France, as well as examine the remains of antiquity in those countries, and my reader will soon see that, without having availed myself of this assistance, I should never have been able to make the discoveries of which he will have been apprized. The benefit which I derived from the examination of the works of the ancients, in my two journeys to Rome, and one to Naples, at last produced a wish to examine the antiquities of more Oriental climes, and a plan was laid for travelling in search of Wisdom to the East;—the origin and defeat of this plan I have detailed in the preface to my Celtic Druids. I am now turned sixty; the eye grows dim, and the cholera and plague prevail in the East; yet I have not entirely given up the hope of going as far as Egypt: but what I have finished of my work must first be printed. Could I but ensure myself a strong probability of health and the retention of my faculties, for ten, or, I think, even for seven years, I should not hesitate on a journey to Samarkand, to examine the library of manuscripts there, which was probably collected by Ulug-Beig. If the strictest attention to diet and habits the most temperate may be expected to prolong health, I may not be very unreasonable in looking forwards for five or six years; and I hope my reader will believe me when I assure him, that the strongest incentive which I feel for pursuing this course of life is the confident hope and expectation of the great discoveries which I am certain I could make, if I could once penetrate into the East, and see things there with my own eyes.
In a very early stage of my investigation, my attention was drawn to the ancient Druidical and Cyclopæan buildings scattered over the world, in almost all nations, which I soon became convinced were the works of a great nation, of whom we had no history, who must have been the first inventors of the religious mythoses and the art of writing; and, in short, that what I sought must be found among them. My book, called the Celtic Druids, which I published in the year 1827, was the effect of this conviction, and is, in fact, the foundation on which this work is built, and without a perusal
- ↑ It may be necessary to inform some persons who may read this book, that, in the dark ages, the Jews, in order to fix the pronunciation and the meaning of their Hebrew to their own fancy at the time, invented a system called the Masoretic Points, which they substituted in place of the vowels, leaving the latter in the text; but, where they could not make them stand for consonants and thus form new syllables, leaving them silent and without meaning. The belief in the antiquity of this system has now become with them a point of faith; of course here the use of reason ends. On this account I shall add to the appendix to this volume a small tract that I formerly published on this subject, which I doubt not will satisfy reasoning individuals.
